Thank you to Fife Photos & Art for inadvertently bringing to my attention the Daily Post’s Photographic Challenges! The theme this week is ‘Circle‘.
I moved to the Black Isle in the Highlands of Scotland three years ago. My camera gathered dust for most of the first year while re-decorating the house temporarily took over my life. I gave myself a break from DIY on a bright sunny morning in August 2013, when I captured one of my first landscape images of the Black Isle – this lovely field of hay bales with the rich blue waters of the Cromarty Firth beyond. The views are constantly changing in this field alone, with green grass grown in autumn, yellow oil seed rape in spring, and golden barley in summer. When I multiply these seasonal changes across the whole of the Black Isle peninsula and the many photogenic locations it has to offer, I realise that I will be building up my portfolio for a long time to come!
Thanks Karen for the mention 🙂
And that’s a stunning photo of a very beautiful part of the world! I’ve only been to Black Isle once, and that was many, many moons ago when I was about twelve. The two things I remember the most, are collecting Devonian plant fossil fragments after visiting Hugh Miller’s cottage in Cromarty, and visiting a well of some sort with thousands of pieces of old cloth tied to the surrounding bushes and trees 🙂
You’re welcome! I like your entries for the photo challenge! Thanks – I’m pleased with this shot! To be honest, I hadn’t spent a huge amount of time on the Black Isle until I moved up here, tending to head north west on most of my visits to the Highlands. Like you, I had some vague childhood memories of Cromarty and the Clootie Well at Munlochy, where pieces of cloth are dipped in the well and tied to bushes and trees in a Celtic healing ritual (I haven’t participated)! I’ve grown to really love this wee corner of the Highlands and am enjoying exploring the Black Isle with my camera. 🙂
Thank you for giving me the name of that ‘well’ Karen, I was beginning to think it was something I had dreamt about, I’ve never been able to find out anything about it. Oddly enough, I’ve now discovered two similar wells in West Cornwall, both of which I knew were Celtic wells, but both never used to have any hanging rags/pieces of cloth. However, it appears that in recent years, the idea of hanging such garments has taken off, and now both wells are known as Clootie or Cloughtie wells 🙂
And I’m looking forward to seeing more of your photos from Black Isle over the coming months! 🙂
Lovely 🙂
Thanks Josh! 🙂